Primal Challenge Brianna page

[Brianna]

Started on the 13th September.
Today I will just list foods, as I continue to post I will let you know the goals I have given myself and how I plan on staying primal for 30 days! It looks like it will be a hard road...
13th
B. Smoothie w/ strawberries, pineapple, coconut milk, ice
S. two bananas
L. Paleo pasta sauce with ground beef
D. Lemon baked cod with steamed brussel sprouts

14th (planned for today)
B. 6 Slices of turkey bacon ( idk if this is primal but yea i like it). pineapple, blueberry, strawberry, almond milk smoothie attempt. Yuk. I'm planning on freezing it and seeing if it is any better then, or adding some honey to make it sweet.
S. Cherry tomatoes
L. Leftovers from last night: Lemon baked cod with steamed brussel sprouts
D. Garam Marsala chicken with steamed broccoli

[Brianna]

What I actually ate today:
B. L. S. all as planned
D. ¾ of a sweet potato cooked as sweet potato fries in EVOO. Roasted Garam Marsala chicken thigh and some roasted butternut squash.
I really hope the sweet potato fries are Primal, because if not I’ll have to start the 30 day challenge again! I got my copy of the Primal Blueprint so I will find out soon enough.
Bad news: I feel like crap. This is part of the reason I ate the sweet potato, comfort food. At first I thought it might be “low-carb flu” but I really don’t think so seeing as I ate a whole punnet of cherry tomatoes today and also a whole bunch of friends that I visited on the weekend had similar symptoms recently. I am lethargic (even more so than usual! Hard to believe…), sore throat, dry throat and back of my sinuses, blocked and runny rose, agitated eyes, headache and having trouble concentrating.
Life goals, in no particular order
1. Reach my goal weight ( lose 7gk)
2. Get rid of my lethargy and become naturally energetic
3. Reduce body fat %, increase muscle mass %, join my local crossfit!!!
4. Improve cardiovascular fitness
5. Get rid of my freaking acne
6. Feel happier and less stressed on a daily basis

In order to see if I am approaching any goals I can list things that are going on right now that I don’t like and would prefer to heal myself of. Firstly, I have a weird taste in my mouth and my mouth is watering excessively. This has been happening for just under 1 week. My only thoughts are bad breath or dry mouth, and really I have no idea if it is either. I have great oral hygiene so I don’t really understand this one. Could be to do with my illness, but I am unsure. I have this bad pain in my jaw at the joint on one side where the bottom part of the jaw joins the upper jaw. Yah I need to see a dentist…. OK. Sleep is a problem for me; I am an avid fan of sleep and usually get more than 8 hours a night. I think I oversleep but it’s hard to tell with an alarm that wakes me up. I sleep to avoid problems and stress. I find it much easier to go to sleep than deal with things. Part of the reason I like sleep so much is that I have some kind of energy deficiency that leads me to believe I need sleep. I am tired throughout the day, lethargic and low energy in general. I have been like this for a long time possibly since I was 11 or 12. I really only remember the last few years though and it got really bad once I started college. How do I know that I am lethargic and lack energy? I asked myself this a long time, wondering ‘maybe this is how everyone feels’. Not true. Back in April of this year I started Crossfit for free with an amazing trainer and group of people. (Can’t believe he trained us for free!) I felt alive for the first time in years. Then I started going Paleo, and I felt like a normal person. I was energetic, happy, the pain in my stomach stopped, my digestive problems stopped. So I know it’s possible and I will get there again. If I hadn’t felt it for myself, I would continue to be skeptical about all the people who claim these sorts of miracles, but I did feel it, and I want it again. Be able to run again. In my freshman year I was running around campus on the footpath and I ran downhill and hurt my knee. Now whenever I run, after about 3 or 4 laps of a track my knee starts hurting and gets worse and worse until the pain is unbearable and I can’t run. It hurts running or when walking downstairs after having aggravated it by running.

OK I think this is enough journaling for one night. Time to read the Primal Blueprint! I’ll let you know my opinion.

[Hedonist]

Welcome. You can do it.

Most of us go for the pork bacon from a taste standpoint. Turkey bacon is fine but make sure you get enough saturated fat.

Sweet potatoes - baked or fried - are ok depending on you goals. Since you are trying to lose fat, you probably should go light on them. But when you really need a comfort food, they are a good choice. Go easy on fruit, like one serving per day. Fructose turns directly into fat.

Are you taking vitamin D? Essential for your immune system (and lots of other things too.)

[Brianna]

Firstly, thanks Hedonist for writing in my journal and welcoming me here! Thanks to everyone who bothered to read my posts as well!
B. 5 slices turkey bacon, 2 tomatoes, both fried in fry pan with about 2 tbs coconut oil
S. Some celery slices
L. Tried to eat a salad from across the road but it was disgusting, I am going to try and get my money back. The thing I did wrong was ask for that crab meat stuff- it is horrible!! I could barely stand two bites of the salad and the olive oil dressing tasted bad as well.
I actually brought lunch thankfully, same as dinner last night- Roasted Garam Marsala chicken thigh and some roasted butternut squash. I only managed to eat a sliver of the chicken an a couple of small pieces of squash though.
D. yet to be decided.

Problems today: I am hungry but I can't stand the thought of eating chicken or meat or vegetables. So I am not eating until I get so hungry that I will eat Primal foods. Also I am still sick so that could be affecting my appetite as well.

Supplements I take: 1200mg/ui idk which one omega 3 fish oil once daily, a once a day multi vitamin, 1200ui vitamin D, 500mg calcium.
I have been taking all these for a while except for the multivitamin which I started last week.

I don't want to eat meat! I don't want to eat vegetables! I want to eat a bread roll! Yes, bread would be super right now. Actually a chicken soup doesn't sound to bad either. I'm not going to the gym tomorrow because I feel like crap!
I have started reading the Primal Blueprint.
My jaw hurt a bit less today.
Bad taste in mouth seems to be going away as well.

[Brianna]

I ended up eating the chicken. After staying on the forums for a while I guess the chicken seemed like a good idea. I had two thighs left over from last nights dinner. (I make mass batches of food for the week so I don't have to cook so often)
Here are some stats:
Current weight: 65.7kg
Goal weight:58kg
Height: 5"5' or 165cm

[Brianna]

OK here I am! Still very fuzzy in the head, I can feel pressure from my sinuses due to this flu/cold I have. What a pain in the ass. Or to be more precise a pain in my head, but you get it, no one likes feeling fluey! FOOD:

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B. 5 slices of turkey bacon YUM and 2 eggs. Cooked in coconut oil. 2 or 3 strawberries
S. Half a large punnet of strawberries. God they are good. Should I eat less? I ate about 20 I think.
L. Roasted chicken thigh and butternut squash again.
S. a bunch of chopped up celery
Afternoon tea (AT)lol. A handful of raw almonds. I think they are raw anyway.
D. Probably 2 chicken thighs with some squash.

If you can't tell from my food diaries I am obviously getting hungry and regaining my appetite. I had a really solid sleep last night, after I actually got to sleep. It took me about half an hour to get to sleep after I tried to at 10.00pm. I slept from 10.30 to 7.30 without waking. That's 9 hours so not too bad!
I tried to drink coffee but it just isn't the same without milk. I used to drink it black, but it just tastes bad now. Good, I wanted to give up coffee anyway. It's draining my morning energy.
Strewth this bloody flu makes it hard for me to keep a train of thought going!
OK so notes about my body. (I'm a big fan of listening to your body and doing what it tells you. I will never push myself over the limits cos I know what happens; you always crash and burn.)

Some background on my digestive issues. About a year and a half? or more? ago I started getting bed pain in my lower abdomen after eating. It was sometimes bearable, mostly torture. Then I would have diarrhea. TMI, I know but I can't say that anywhere else so I'll say it here. Yea pretty terrible I couldn't even walk sometimes the pain was so bad. I went to the doctor and they had me have a colonoscopy which revealed nothing. Surprise, surprise I am always in perfect health even when in terrible pain. So that went on and on, told me to stop drinking coffee (yea right). I tried figuring out what was causing the stomach upsets and it seemed to be either oil (at first), eggs or coffee. So I quit eating eggs and oily foods, and still had the problem sometimes. After I went Paleo in March 2011 the problems stopped. Cool hey? Only occasionally did I have them after I stopped paleo and this was when I ate eggs and coffee combined. I still drink the coffee and for the last 3 weeks (I have been about 70% paleo) I never had any pain. Today though... I did! It lasted about 1 minute and caused me to rush off to the bathroom, but it was a false alarm apparently. Maybe it was the eggs I ate for breakfast. I'll watch next time I try eggs and see if it happens again!
Please let me whinge a little more about this cold. IT SUCKS. My nose is blocked, my head hurts, my sinus have pressure, my throat is dry, my eyes are tired.
After I get rid of this cold I will try to do some exercise, or get some play in. Like Grok.

Oooh Important note about today. It is probably one of the biggest temptations that I knew was coming, Popcorn Friday. At my work on Friday afternoon one of my bosses cooks popcorn for the whole floor. I am a known popcorn lover and always am the first one eating it. I sit right next to the kitchen to so I can smell it for hours. I didn't eat it! Instead, before the popcorn was coming I ate a whole lot of celery and that made me satiated so I wasn't hungry and I just didn't eat it. OMG.

[FLGurl]

Yuck! I hate having a head/sinus cold. Hope you feel better really soon.

Great job on the popcorn temptation. I'm learning that being prepared seems to be the secret to primal success. :-)

[Brianna]

SO I woke up on day 5 feeling happy, which was great. I have been not setting my alarm so I wake up on my own and going to bed at the same time every night to try and introduce structure into my life and lower stress levels. What I ate on day 5.
B. Paleo egg cup cakes! Eggs, red, green and yellow sautéed peppers, cooked bacon. These were so good I ate 7 of them.
L. Chicken thigh, almonds.
D. I cheated, I don't know if cheating is allowed in the 30 day challenge because it is meant to be strict but I cheated. From Marks approach I see that if you try 100% you will reach your goal 80% of the time and that I can't think I am perfect so I'm not too worried. Jack Links beef jerky (2 packets 240 calories each), peanuts (the real cheat part) unspecified amount. Also ate more almonds.
I don't think I did to bad all in all, the thing about the jacklinks beef jerky is that it contains soy sauce and hydrolized corn syrup/ whatever really gross ingredients you can think of. I think it really might be worth buying a dehydrator and roasting and drying my own jerky for the lulz. At least it wont have SUGAR in it.... yuk.

Day 6. so far.
B. 2 egg cupcakes, cup of tea with dash of almond milk.

I still have this flu/cold/sinus infection and its stressing me out more than ever cos it won't go away. Its not that bad right now, but its hanging on like my body doesn't want to kill it. CMON BODY KILL THE BACTERIA. KILL THE VIRUS. YOU CAN DO IT.

The eggs I have eaten hurt my belly, but only a little bit. I just can't seem to give up eggs cos they are yummy. Maybe this is my problem? Allergic to egg?
I want to exercise but I said I wouldn't until I felt better so that is really annoying as well.
Yesterday I went to Whole Foods and worked out why it's nicknamed Whole Paycheck. I bought lots of organic food including some GRASS-FED ground beef, kale, avocados, beets and BACON. I'm pretty excited about this. I have been wolfing down Rob Wolf's The Paleolithic Solution Podcasts like it is my job and seeing how poorly the Primal blueprint fits the Paleo mold. Mind you I am only up to 2009 in the podcasts so who knows what has changed since then. Rob Wolf and that seen fairly scientific in their approach to nutrition so I am keen to listen to them. One thing I am worried about it that they say that Fish oil should be kept refrigerated or it will go rancid and will have an adverse effect of what is desired. I have never kept my fish oil refrigerated so I am worried about this. I carry it around in a pill box in my hand bag which probably gets hot when sitting in my car. uh oh. I realized that I am not getting enough vegetables ( I knew this already) so I am making an effort to cook foods this week that have vegetables in them. Like a soup or salad where veges don't taste like veges. I am trying to clean up my room too so I can feel more relaxed but it is an effort and a half. I am getting there little by little. I feel like wandering around cleaning is better than sitting at computer all day for using energy. And I am well enough to do it without feeling like dying for about an hour or so at a time.

Plans for today:
Go shopping, buy electronics.
Cook salad and maybe Paleo spaghetti for today and a few days this week.
Read more primal blueprint.
Get music set up on my smart phone.
Adios ladies and gents

[Brianna]

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These are the egg cupcakes I amde and also the temptation of the day for day 5. That cheese smelt heavenly.

[Brianna]

So I have reached the stage again where my sense of smell has come alive! I know that this happens to other people as well because there are a few discussions on Paleohacks about it. After you go Paleo for a little while your sense of smell is heightened. Taste as well, because smell impacts taste. Its awesome because food is more enjoyable. When you aren't used to smelling things in HD it seems like everything you eat is from a gourmet restaurant where the chef has somehow infused magical flavors into the food. Anyways I ate BACON today.
Yesterday Day 6.
B. egg cupcakes. Cup of earl grey tea with a dash of almond milk
L. Almonds probably like4 ounces ( idk how much an oz is but anyway) and a strawberry
D. Warm Roasted Beet, Kale and Salmon salad... DELICIOUS.

That salad got my greens in (half a bunch of organic kale) and it tasted great! who knew salad could be so awesome?

Today DAY 7
B. 3 pieces organic Bacon, and 6 more slices to come lol I think i'll be hungry later so I'm stocking up now. Cup of earl grey tea with a dash of almond milk.